This is London Magazine April Edition 2026 - Flipbook - Page 24
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Lauren Young in English Touring Opera's 2024 production of The Rake's Progress.
Photo: Richard Hubert Smith
ENGLISH TOURING OPERA GILBERT
AND SULLIVAN AT HACKNEY
English Touring Opera, the nation’s
leading touring opera company, are
bringing two brand-new productions to
London’s Hackney Empire in April,
featuring the company’s first ever
production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s
fizzing comedy The Gondoliers and
Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in a new English
translation.
Considered Gilbert and Sullivan’s last
great success, The Gondoliers is a
comedy of mistaken identity that marries
joy and chaos with a sharp satire of
monarchy and class. Director and
choreographer Liam Steel returns to the
company to direct the production,
following 2017’s critically acclaimed
Patience and Olivier-Award winning Paul
Bunyan in 2014, presenting a
technicolour vision of 18th century
Venice full of movement and energy.
Joining him to helm the production is
conductor Jack Ridley.
The tour also features a new
production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, in
a new English translation by ETO Artistic
Director Robin Norton-Hale. Ripped
from the headlines about a real-life
crime case from the composer’s own
childhood, Pagliacci is the story of the
very public breakdown of a passionate
relationship between two celebrated
actors in an intense 90 minutes of drama.
VIRTUOSO PIANIST CHLOE FLOWER
AT KINGS PLACE
Chloe Flower (pictured below) is a
Korean American virtuoso pianist and
composer, emerging as one of classical
music’s boldest modern voices. Known
for pairing lush piano with contemporary
influences, she creates a sound that
feels powerful, current and accessible.
She moves fluidly between classical
performance and pop culture, having
collaborated with artists including Cardi
B, Nas and 2 Chainz, with performances
spanning stages from the GRAMMY
Awards to Madison Square Garden.
Her growing UK profile includes a
sold out performance at the Royal Albert
Hall’s Elgar Room in 2025 and her live
show at Kings Place, London, on
Monday 20 April will offer an intimate
opportunity to experience her live
approach up close – designed to make
classical music feel current, powerful
and accessible.
LONDON PREMIERE OF SHOBANA
JEYASINGH DANCE’S WE CALIBAN
Choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh,
one of the most distinctive forces in UK
dance, brings her latest dance work We
Caliban to Sadler’s Wells East for its
London premiere from 21 to 23 April.
Shakespeare’s final play The Tempest, a
tale of power lost and regained, is the
starting point for this powerfully dramatic
and contemporary dance reading.
Jeyasingh reframes the story through the
eyes of Caliban, a minor character in the
play. His life is changed forever when the
power games of distant lands and unknown
peoples are played out on his own remote
island, making him a ‘monstrous’ servant
to a new master, Prospero, and his young
daughter, Miranda. Violence is never far
from Caliban, whether it is meted out to
him or the way he resists his captivity and
forced labour.
These familiar characters emerge
from an ensemble cast who set the
scene and convey emotion, including the
traumas of colonisation. Mythic and
antique yet all too contemporary, We
Caliban is visceral and potent dance
theatre, drawing on present-day parallels
as well as the personal experiences of
Jeyasingh and her co-dramaturg Uzma
Hameed.
The piece opens with Will Duke’s
video projections of tropical flora and
fauna locating the action on Caliban’s
island. Later, as Prospero’s party arrives,
come images of the turbulent sea and
shipwreck, archival maps and travel
literature from Shakespeare's time,
excerpts of Christopher Columbus’s
diary, and paintings of first meetings
with native Americans.
T H I S I S L O N D O N M A G A Z I N E • T H I S I S L O N D O N O N L I N E • w w w. t i l . c o m • @ t h i s i s l o n d o n m a g
